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Meta n'Goro
The Meta n'Goro, '(''yarny ''in Nuyoken, ''meddah in Baxon, midha er in Fulorich-Cooomich, nu hogro ''in Calesha, ''methla ''in Bayarkart, ''moddo yuor ''in Cobban, ''amerkan ''in Argomt, ''igboshi ''in Imperial Savaari) sometimes known as ''metans, is a species of the human genus that became distinct from the homo sapiens hundreds of thousands of years before the creation of Masuulia. Due to a history of sanctimony over the homo sapiens, the term "human" does not apply to them, in spite of the fact that the two species' anatomies (apart from the arms and legs) are barely distinguishable. A meta n'goro is born without arms or legs, instead bearing stumps with bared nerve tissue and blood vessels running very close the the skin. This is due to both a wide-spread genetic augmentation that occurred a few thousand years before the Savage Years, along with a natural selection that occurred during the Savage Years. Since humanity was so decemated during this time and previous history was all but obliterated just before The Submerge, it was believed for a few thousand years that humans were always without arms and legs. History The best known, most historically accepted, and most thorough tale of this people is detailed in the series The Metan Goro, and all else by the Masuuli historian Ikké Somat dos Beskon, and is neatly summarized in the Morning Stories article: Nothing definite is known about the period of Earth's time between the beginning of the '''Interim and the geological formation of the planet, but in spite of the skeptic's attempt to dissuade the honest student, humans and metans both existed in this time. Also, and even more controversially, they were one species for a long time after their first civilization began. How this divergence came to must be left to further study, but the most respected theory is that, since it likely happened in a period of thriving civilization, it must have been done willingly and not through several mindless natural selections. This may seem an unreasonable assumption, as one can't have armless children by chopping off one's arms, but it is even more difficult to concoct a dilemma in which a living human torso (who has been born in such a way, no less) is more likely to reproduce than a person with all of his or her appendages. Sure, then who did this? Why would anyone do this? It's insane to willingly change the human genome to exclude, rather than improve, a person's method of moving and manipulating, right? Well, yes, to a modern person it is completely insane. The most popular theory states that an enormous empire, covering all of Wenataré and Kobané, had imposed the tyrannical rule that arms and legs must be struck not only from everyone's body, but from everyone's DNA as well. A great empire, spanning a couple of continents is not too unbelievable when you consider the modern state of Masuulia, which covers a much greater landmass, but the question remains as to why such decree would be called, and why wouldn't the opposed of this regime not just rise up in indignation? It's likely that some did resist the rule, but there was likely a cultural element to the success of this process. Hygiene is one explanation; if your technology has a perfectly good replacement for your infection-prone hands and feet that persist in their touching of every conceivable surface, a sufficiently hygienic society would treat arms and legs as one treats an appendix: a needless risk. Another possible reason is that the pace of the society, which might have been locked in a desperate conflict internally or from another continent, was heightened to a pace which would make clumsy natural body parts prohibitively slow, weak, and fragile. One of these theories, or both of them, or another entirely might be the case, but evidently the human genome of all people in Wenataré and Kobané had the arms and legs genes removed intentionally, so that it could be replaced artificially. It is unknown whether this was a gradual process; first the arms go, then the legs; or if it happened all at once, but for a time before the Interim the first Meta n'Goro ruled the two continents. There might've been an austere period of struggling to buy shoddy limns for one's whole family, or a terrific paradise time of plentiful, elegant limns for free, but it ended. The Maydorim Event, which could've been a failed attempt to deflect an asteroid, an unanticipated collision of several large meteors, or an armageddon of earth-shattering bombs, ended civilization on our world for hundreds of thousands of years. This must be now the end of the Meta n'Goro, right? Even if the genetically unchanged humans of Raisu and Sabaaré were equally crushed by the Event, they at least had the natural means of locomotion and manipulation. But the poor metan relied on his terrific technology, and therefore his terrific infrastructure to hope for the construction of a fully-operable set of hims for him and a few others needed to form a sustainable population. It's inconceivable that a metan population would survive in the inimical climate, scarcity, and loneliness that accompanied the Interim, but we see them now, their civilization revitalized and all evidence pointing to vague, hardy, savage cultural infancies that we humans also endured. Somehow, metans continued to make limns, even when their knowledge, language, and culture faded into nothingness through the years of bare survivability. They did this in the worst of times because the materials were available, and the knowledge to create the limn persisted even though all else but instinct was obliterated. The prevailing theory suggests that these primitive Meta n'Goro, who were likely scrambling to make limns as desperately as they were in their search for food, water, shelter, and safety, were given a gift from their ancestors, which was their only penitence for cursing them with stumps in such a time. As the these predecessors were given to playing with genes, it is likely that they anticipated the Maydorim Event, and prepared for it by ensuring their few descendants would have the materials to make a limn without the need for anything more sophisticated than, ironically, their own hands. Yes, this is the popular theory, famously presented by Ungary Veltrenk several centuries ago, that yonnana, yonbesk, orquey, goryt, and the many other plants, fungi, slime molds, and even animals like the gelmo were engineered to provide complex proteins needed for the easy preparing of a yonbar and yonmus. This also accounts for the existence of trees such wekelech and calig, whose bizarre branch shapes have no evolutionary explanation other than that were shaped that way intentionally to provide the perfect limnactile. In times of need one might hear the joke about a tree that grows money. After the event, there were trees, and many other lifeforms, that grew things way more precious. The metans of this second anthropocene, meaning of course the one we live in now, had rescued themselves from extinction in the worst, longest-running catastrophe humanity has likely ever seen, but they wouldn't have lasted much longer if conditions persisted. The overall metan population in the two continents (which was the only place at this point where metans lived) had lowered to roughly seventy thousand individuals, all of which were separated into four major groups. Flor - This group was the only to survive around the southeastern corner of Wenataré, thriving in the islands of modern-day Floret (Atka Flors) and the dark forests near next to the mountains bordering the Fertile Rim (Jajau Flors). They were light olive-skinned and tended to have brown or black curly hair. Their skin was very thick and rich in keloids, allowing them to live in sunny climes. The Atka were some of the first metans to build boats, and were the first to travel north and make contact with the Coooms. The Jajau were the first the travel into the Fertile Rim, though they had the misfortune of meeting the Baskis in the stark wastelands of Calito. The Jajau would, within two thousand years of the population increase, establish the city-state of Vinta and rule over the Fertile Rim, while the mostly nomadic Atka would travel the coasts and inhabit Fosk, Selt, Floret, the islands of Hashtu, and would interbreed with the Coooms up north and the Baskis down south. Both groups tended towards a charitable society, and preferred to pool the effort of limning every person rather than leaving them to fend for themselves. Cooom - This hardy group rose from the frozen forests of Kueko (Boshte and Nuark Coooms) the stony shores of northeastern Wenataré (Forung Coooms). These metans were pinkish red-skinned, had straight, blue-black hair, and were known to very large, ranging from 6'2" to 7'2" feet tall with their limns, and tended towards meaty builds. They were the first metans to construct seeluns to protect their limns from damage, but were some of the last to develop a system of agriculture. The Boshte and Nuark, formerly closely knit groups, had sundered a thousand years after the population increase, the Boshte traveling west, around the great lakes, through the steppes of Dackod, and finally settling in northern Calito, where they drove out the Baxons. The Nuark moved towards the stony shore and began a brutal war with the Forung, which culminated in the Forung's extinction (though it is likely some Forung intermarried with some Nuark during the fray). Some tribes stayed in the cold shores, while a few more moved south (a feat delayed by a superstitious fear of warm climates) and established the realm of Nuyok, where they first came into contact with the Atka Flors. While the Nuark still lived amongst the Boshte, their attitude of limning duties was opposite of the Flor's tradition, meaning that it was considered dishonorable to make a set of limns for another (unless for a young child, a wife or husband, or an old member of the family). After their massacring of the Forung and their exodus to Nuyok, a legendary figure, Wormayir, famously insisted he make limns for his neighbor Biderwes, even though the old man wasn't related to him. In spite of warnings by his more traditionalist friends that he follow Nuark custom, he continued to make limns for whoever needed them. He went hungry in his neglect of his own needs, though he always keep his own limns in good shape. Wormayir died, hungry and cold, even as the ones he loved jeered and called him a fool, but not before his neighbor Biderwes famously called him "limner" with affection, not derision. Whether this was true or not, the Nuark Cooom were the first to employee limners, or people who limned exclusively in exchange the community's support. It was believed that this innovation allowed the kingdom of Nuyok to become one of the most magnificent civilizations of its time. Baski - This group had its beginnings in the once-lush Horn of Balez, living peacefully with nature and even developing a rich culture of colorful clothes and well-wrought limns until their overzealous forestry caused a sudden, massive soil erosion and salting of their most fertile lowlands. A terrible famine ensued, and many of them were forced to flee north along the Ruadang River and through the deserts surrounding it, in hopes of finding a fertile source. These were the Baxons, a sunbaked, brown-skinned people of fair blonde or red hair, and they never found the paradise that they sought at the end of the river, only a range of snowy mountains with sparse growths. With broken hearts they began to build their kingdoms in the shade of these mountains, trying and mostly failing to grow food and limns the Kobeers Etymology "Meta n' goro" is a portmanteau word combining two ancient Maydle words "medagmer", which means "metamorphosized", and "nu hogro", which means "newborn". Limner Technology Many years before the even that triggered the Interim, the ancestors of the meta n'goro bio-engineered many different plants, fungus, and animal species that naturally produced ion-flow proteins, which allowed their impoverished to make prosthesis with just wood, a small amount of simple mechanics, and materials that could be easily grown. During the Interim the knowledge required to make limbs from more sophisticated technology was lost, these new lifeforms allowed the fledgling meta n'goro to survive. In the the loss and dilution of language, the word "ion" became "yon", and word from "limb" became "limn". As the population began to rise again from the extreme low and culture began to rekindle, every society which wasn't served by a "limner" was not able to produce food or defend themselves, and thus died out. The better the limns produced, the more likely a group of people was to survive, and "limner" technology became more efficient in the subsequent generations. Each aspect of limner technology is composed of a different material: *Yonbar - transferring energy from yonnode to the yonmus. *Yonnode - port on yonbar which absorbs the ionic charge from the mitochondria in the blood. A properly made yonnode will sterilize itself naturally long enough to be attached and sealed on a breached blood vessel. *Yonmus - converting yonbar energy into mechanical energy. *Yonmeld - converting organic material for absorbtion by yonbar. This allows a wearer to add force from a yonmeld device to the net strength absorbed from the bloodstream. It is not required for a limn to work. The first yonmeld device was invented by Limner Markon of Gollians, late into the Nuyoken Age. *Yonfeldt - makes minute movements in the stumps in response to touch and heat, exciting nerve endings of ghostly limns. This required technology that did not exist until several thousand years after the Resurrergence. A limn does not require this aspect to function usefully. *Limnactile - skeletal structure that the yonmus acts its mechanical energy upon. Often composed of oak or titanium. *Muskile - semi-elastic bonds between yonmus and limnactile. Also used to seal open blood vessels to yonnodes. *Chassile - Chassis that holds the limns to the body and bears the joint strain of the limns by distributing it to straps wrapped around the hips, groin, and shoulders. A properly tied and placed chassile won't shift and chafe, and will keep the yonnode neutrally placed on the wound. All limners know how to properly construct and tie on a chassile, but there are some limners who specialize in making and tying in particularly comfortable and unintrusive chassiles. *Seelun - fabric surrounding a limn, preventing debris from interfering with its functioning. Often composed of leather, cloth, latex, or synthetic materials. While a limn doesn't require this aspect, it is known to most limners that a poorly made or absent seelun will result in the limn wearing out quickly, or a serious blood infection transmitted from a defiled yonnode.